


Because you're so good (and I'm nothing like you)

by Handoverthebooty



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Flirting, In which a brilliant commentor told me their amazing headcanon and I couldn't help myself, Oblivous!Max
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 08:19:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6975178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Handoverthebooty/pseuds/Handoverthebooty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"<em>Huh</em>?"</p><p>"I mean, I mean-" Victoria actually <em>stuttered</em>, looking a curious mix of flustered and irritated. Max kind of liked it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because you're so good (and I'm nothing like you)

**Author's Note:**

> ok ok oK SO 
> 
> on my other chasefield fic (rent-a-girlfriend) i asked if anyone had any headcanons and bOY HOWDY 
> 
> all of em were great but one in particular just caught my eye with its brilliance look at this:
> 
>  
> 
> _i think Max has no gaydar and doesn't immediately get the message when someone is flirting with her_
> 
>  
> 
> thank u so much to the person who commented and id give all the credit if you weren't an anon commenter :') but i hope u dont mind me writing something with this so soon it was just toooo good hnng
> 
> oblivious!max (oblivious!anyone tbh) is my bread and butter and i wrote this in two hours and its four am and i regret nothing. i hope i made this romantic enough ;u;

Max kind of hates school, but also kind of loves it. Their relationship is complicated, she supposes, as she stares down at the gaping maw that was her open tote bag, a look of horror on her face that was steadily getting worse. She could almost feel herself sweating.

Why?

Because she didn't have a pencil.

That may not sound like the end of the world, but it might as well be. Mrs. Grant took absolutely zero excuses about being poorly prepared for class. 

She had _prepared_ for this. Max had a pencil case, for gods' sake, how did she not have any pencils? Not even one of those dulled ones that no one liked to use, holy god, she wasn't going to survive this.

Wait, couldn't she just ask someone? Mrs. Grant wasn't in class yet. Hm...

Max looked up from her traitor of a pencil case to glance around the classroom for anyone that looked vaguely nice and unintimidating. Kate didn't have this period, damn it. Warren did, though...!

Then she remembered that Warren was currently visiting his grandparent's for a few days. 

Max sighed, giving the room one more look as a last hope to see any kind faces. Faces that were kind enough to give her a pencil for an hour. Her gaze accidentally lingered on some meathead jock, and he grinned at her in a way that made her shrink back in her chair and sweat nervously. 

Nope, she couldn't do this. This, this thing right here, is something Max Caulfield is just incapable of doing.

She found herself looking over at Victoria, for no other reason than to up her despair even higher. The girl was currently on her phone. No surprise there. Her hair, that was normally gelled to high heaven, seemed a bit more natural, and even appealing, if Max's pride could stomach admitting it. A strand hung in her face as she leaned down slightly to look at her texts, or tweets, or whatever the young kids did these days on their cellular devices.

Not one, not two, but _three_ pencils were sitting, smug as can be, on her desk. Like she needed three. Max eyed the pencils with jealousy. If only one of them slid off the desk and rolled over to her, like a gift from god. They may have been in Victoria's evil, manicured hands, but Max honestly didn't give a shit. A pencil tainted with evil was still a pencil.

She was so busy trying to use the force on Victoria's pencils that, at first, she didn't notice the girl's eyes had snapped up from her phone and were now staring at her with a halfhearted glare, like she couldn't be bothered to hate Max so early in the morning.

When Max finally _did_ notice, she immediately looked away from Victoria and her tempting pencils, face heating for reasons she couldn't place. Embarrassment maybe?

She glanced at the clock. Still about five minutes until class started. However, all hope was lost. These five minutes would be filled with despair and hopelessness, and her imagining Mrs. Grant seeing that she wasn't writing down any notes in class because she _couldn't_ , and expelling her on the spot.

Okay, so maybe that was a little far-fetched. Max could get really paranoid. The chance of her getting expelled because of a pencil, or lack of one, was about zero percent.

...Right?

Max slowly laid her head down on her desk. The sleek, cool wood against her flushed cheek felt rather nice, but it did nothing to quell the anguish going on inside her mind. 

Anguish over a pencil. Her parents would be proud.

Someone's hand smacked against the desk, right beside her head, and Max kneed the underside of her desk in surprise, sitting up and screaming _fuck_ in ten different languages in her mind as she winced at the pain.

The hand had a lovely manicure, her pain-fogged mind thought. Short, french-tipped nails. A little expected, but cute. And slightly familiar, for some reason. Huh.

Who had cute fingernails like that? Kate's nails were plain and bitten half the time, and she doubts that Warren could have such a fashionable taste in fingernail decoration.

Then her delirious mind clears a bit, and she comes to the horrifying realization that this was Victoria Chase's hand. Her horrified gaze travelled up, up, from a hand to a milk-white arm, then to a cashmere shirt that was worth more than Max was, and finally, it stopped on a face that would've been pretty if not for the smug sneer that was set firmly in place anytime Max was in the general vicinity.

"Gah!" And with that eloquent start of a conversation, Max leans back as far as she could go in her chair without falling backwards. "Wha-what-"

"Are you high?" Victoria practically snarls, and wow, was Max not expecting to hear that, of all things. "Did someone die?"

"No...? Why would you even think tha-"

"Because you've been staring into space for the last five minutes and acting like your puppy just died in a fire, hippie. It was distracting me." 

"My face was distracting you." Max said flatly, staring up at Victoria with the most unimpressed face she could muster up while having overwhelming anxiety, about a pencil of all things. 

"Considering you were staring at me, yes, it was not only distracting me," Victoria leaned down as Max's face flushed in embarrassment. "but _annoying_ me. Your face does a lot of things to me, but annoying the hell out of me usually isn't one of them."

Huh? What did that even mean? Maybe Victoria was the high one here, geez.

"Well, people space out and stare at random things!" Max snapped. She immediately regretted it when the girl's eyes narrowed. "W-what other reason would I be staring at you?"

"Oh, I don't know." Victoria drawled, clearly making herself comfortable as she practically draped across Max's desk like an irritating cat. "Maybe because of my stunning good looks?"

"Right." Max replied, for lack of a better response, face tilted down. Her face wasn't getting any cooler, and the thought of her flush being obvious only embarrassed her further.

"I'm not innocent either. I catch myself staring at you sometimes, you know. It's hard not to, honestly." Victoria admitted, voice quiet. Max looked up so quick she nearly got whiplash. 

" _Huh_?"

"I mean, I mean-" Victoria actually _stuttered_ , looking a curious mix of flustered and irritated. Max kind of liked it. "Because you're so weird! And stupid! I stare at you in disgust, I swear!"

"Oh." Max replied, mood souring even more. Geez, Victoria really knew how to compliment a girl, didn't she? "Well, thanks. I really needed that punch to my fragile self-esteem after already being anxious all morning."

"Oh, shut up. I gave your stupid ego a love tap. What are you so anxious about, anyway? Not that I care."

"Well," Max grimaced sheepishly. "I...don't have a pencil."

"...And?"

"And that's it."

"Oh my god. Caulfield. For the first time in my life, I'm speechless. A _pencil_? Is that really what your hipster brain chooses to worry about?"

"Yes, A pencil!" Max blurted out, a few octaves too loud. She huffed, staring up at Victoria with the angriest expression she could muster. It probably looked like a slightly annoyed-pout, because she couldn't give a venomous look to save her life, but she tried anyway. "Mrs. Grant is strict about being prepared for class, you know that! If she figures out I'm not prepared, she's going to be so mad, and I have a pencil case and everything and I'm so mad at myself and I'm gonna probably get in trouble for it and- and can you get expelled for something like this? Can you? Oh god, can you-"

Her frantic words were muffled as Victoria clamped a hand over her mouth. She glared up at her, and licked the palm of her hand because she's petty like that. Victoria's lip curled and she pulled her hand away, gingerly wiping it on Max's jacket.

"Do you even have a brain, Caulfield? Like, really?" Was the first thing she said. Another insult. Nice. She opened her mouth to reply snarkily, but Victoria beat her to it. "You could've just asked me, dumbass! I had three sitting on my desk, I know you saw them, Hipster."

"W-well!" She fumbled for a response, anger receding rapidly and being replaced by nervousness. "Like you would give me one, _Tori_."

She'd meant for the nickname to sound insulting. Instead, it sounded... _cute_. A pet name, oh, god, what has she done. She looked almost as shocked as Victoria did.

Her anxiety increased by about a million when Victoria suddenly just walked back to her desk without another word. 

Max's eyes stayed firmly on her desk, fearing that Victoria had already told everyone and now they were all staring at her with malicious gazes and cracking jokes. Saying how lame and dumb she was. Victoria probably told everyone about the pencil thing too, just to add a dash more of Max's stupidity to the mix.

She's nearly surprised out of her chair for the second time that day when a rolled up piece of notebook paper is slammed on her desk. She looks up, curious and a little fearful, to find Victoria going to sit back down at her own desk, not facing anywhere in Max's direction.

She pokes the piece of paper like it's a dangerous bomb.

It unrolls, like the red carpet itself, and out comes rolling a _pencil_.

It's perfect. Sharpened to perfection. No bitten off eraser, even! What angel took pity on her?

She holds the pencil with disbelieving hands, and looks back down at the notebook paper. Swirly, rushed words were scrawled on it.

_This pencil is sharper than you'll ever be, but it's also just a fucking pencil. No one should have to have anxiety about pencils, so here, I guess. I'll be expecting it back, so come to my room after last period. Wear something nice, because I think I deserve lunch, since I gave you a pencil and you seem to hold the worthless pieces of wood in such high regard._

_Also, your face doesn't actually disgust me._

_Tori_

What.

(Though she had absolutely no idea why Victoria was being so nice to her, she still felt eternally grateful for the pencil. And so that was how Max took her out to a friendly lunch. Victoria tried to make out with her in the middle of some delicious pancakes, and Max cracked her across the face out of _mostly_ shock. It took an entire confession for her to finally understand that Victoria wanted to be friends of a more homosexual and romantic nature. Their second date went almost the exact same, except Max didn't smack her across the face this time.)

**Author's Note:**

> i listened to the steven universe soundtrack while writing this and got so emotional omg 
> 
> (real talk i need to write smth for that show because it is _gold_ and literally everyone is gay as hell and i ship everything dear lord)
> 
> i just screamed "I WANT TO INSPIRE YOUUU" and scared my dog this is why i shouldnt listen to pearl singing i get too gay and hyped


End file.
